Tuesday, 17 March 2015

Top 5 Takeaways from Westcoast's Windows 2003 EOS Roadshows

As the clock ticks towards July 14th and the end of Microsoft’s support for Windows Server 2003, we invited resellers and their customers to attend our ‘Time for Change’ regional roadshows to get fully prepared for migration.

We ran three events this month in Birmingham, London and Manchester – each featuring a jam-packed agenda that gave resellers everything they needed to help them successfully migrate their customers from Windows Server 2003.

We are really pleased with how the roadshows went and have had some great feedback from attendees that it was of great value. So, for those that didn't make it, we wanted to share with you the highlights from the Windows 2003 EOS roadshows in order to ensure our partners have every success in the opportunity that the Server 2003 EOS date is providing!Take a look at our top 5 Takeaways from the Event:

1. Server EOS is only 120 days away (as of today) – the average migration takes 100 days!

Now we know it probably isn't the first time you have talked to your customers about maintenance initiatives around upgrades, refreshes, and migrations. But do not make the mistake that the Windows Server 2003 migration is one of the same – you will lose! It's very easy to underestimate the complexity of the effort and therefore very easy to overrun on timeline and budget. More importantly, you will miss the opportunity to sell the bigger value to their business by modernising 7 to 10 years old hardware and software infrastructure in line with 'The New Style of IT'.

2. If your customers use Visa or MasterCard to transact on their website, you may not be compliant as of July 14th 2015.

The Windows Server 2003 EOS will affect a business' payment and accreditation status. Companies and organisations still working from Windows Server 2003 platforms, after July 2015, will not be adhering to the PCI compliance standards required to host both Visa & MasterCard transactions on their website.

Microsoft have stated “Payment Card Industry (PCI) policies will not be met with an operating system that is EOS” (Ebuyer, 2014)

3.There were 20 critical updates to Server 2003 in 2014. As of July 14th there will be NONE!

If this isn't scary enough to encourage migration then we don't know what will be.

Customers that go beyond the termination of extended support place themselves at increased risk because automated updates and security patches will no longer be available, and they will face regulatory non-compliance .

And don't forget that this also means that all those workloads, data sets, and apps also face this EOS too!

While these apps may serve current business needs, they represent significant business risk, can be expensive to maintain, and could slow down innovation.

Custom support agreements (CSAs) will be required for support after this date but we think if you take a look at the cost implications then you may think twice about sitting still!

Fees for a custom support agreement's first year are usually in the range of $200,000 and can even double or triple annually. For enterprises with large applications portfolios, the maintenance costs and performance limitations of legacy infrastructure will also impact investment in new projects.

4.Something needs to be done! Now!

So as you can see, time is most definitely of the essence and there is plenty of opportunity for partners to reap benefit from when it comes to the Windows 2003 Server EOS.

- Customers are likely take the opportunity to assess their Vmware investments as well
- They will examine whether to move applications to the cloud
- They will need help to define a future state and explore different options
- They will look at their organisation and processes to identify gaps
- They will want to discuss the risks, business value, and costs of moving off Windows Server 2003 environment to a new solution, like Windows Server 2012 R2.
But remember – you are not alone.
We have many resources available to our partners that will prepare you to help your customers when moving forward with the following next steps:

5.Westcoast can help you with the migration from anything, to anything, to on-prem, hybrid or cloud.

We have the solution to every scenario - call us today to discuss your migration plan.

To ensure success in your migration efforts, successfully offer continued protection of your customers' data, and improve the overall health of their IT with better services, apps, reliability and agility....